Expression Pattern of Transcription Factors and Intracellular Cytokines Reveals That Clinically Cured Tuberculosis Is Accompanied by an Increase in Mycobacterium-Specific Th1, Th2, and Th17 Cells

Figure 1

Activation of T helper cells in patients with active tuberculosis, clinically cured tuberculosis, and TST+ healthy donors. (a) Schematic representation of the gating strategy and determination of percentage of CD69+ cells among CD4+ cells in stimulated (4 μg/mL M. bovis antigen) and unstimulated (medium only) cultures. First, T cells were separated based on FSC and SSC patterns. Then, these cells were isolated according to CD4 expression. (b) Activation was evaluated based on CD69 expression. Positive cells were defined using an appropriate isotype control. (c) Comparison among healthy donors TST+ (white box-plots), active-TB patients (dashed box-plots), and TB-treated patients (gray box-plots) in stimulated (4 μg/mL M. bovis antigen) and unstimulated (medium only) cultures. : Kruskal-Wallis test followed by Dunn’s post hoc test. Horizontal lines represent the median, bars represent 25th–75th percentiles, and vertical lines represent 10th–90th percentiles.

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